1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for printing data on sheets, for example, a system for printing data on receipt sheets or like sheets for reducing the quantity of paper for ticket issuance.
2. Description of the Related Art
The POS system permits various data such as sales data to be obtained in real time and is widely used in various shops such as convenience stores, supermarkets, restaurants and fast-food restraint in view point of sales tactics. The POS system is also used for printing ticket sheets for entrance tickets of concerts, attractions, etc., train tickets and airplane tickets.
In the POS system of this type, a bar code reader in each POS terminal reads out bar codes printed on sales items, thus taking out sales item data and item price data, or each register operator inputs item data and price data by terminal operation. The data taken out or inputted in this way, are fed out from the terminal to a processor as main unit for the execution of POS functions such as item management and sales amount management.
For recording details of sales data of sold items, amounts, etc., a printer is used for printing the sales data on sheets. Data which are printed on sheets are usually of item names, prices, total amounts, consumption taxes, gross total amounts deposited money amounts, change amounts, dates, etc., and are also shop data such as shop names.
FIG. 4 shows an example of receipt printed by a printer, which belongs to a prior art POS terminal. The illustrated sheet is printed and issued in a convenience store. In an uppermost part of the receipt, the shop mark, shop name (or branch name), address and telephone number of the relevant convenience store are printed. In a part right under the horizontal line, the sales date, (and the name of person in charge: name of register operator), and then the names, quantities and prices of the sold items are printed. In a lowermost part, the total amount, the tax and the like, the gross total amount, the deposited amount and the change amount are printed.
The printing mode as shown is adopted not only for receipts for sales data printing in convenience stores, supermarkets, restaurants, fast food stores, etc. but is also adopted for other data sheets as desired, for instance entrance tickets of concerts and attractions. In these sheets, ticket issuance shop data and other data as desired are printed separately from intrinsic data to be printed.
Japanese patent laid-open No. 9-226184 (FIG. 2, paragraphs [0015]-[0021]) (Patent reference 1) discloses a receipt printing system, in which when printing shop data such as the shop data together with letter data in a receipt, image data of the shop data which requires a relatively long printing time is preliminarily read out. This system is an example of printing the shop data in an independent place separate from the item sales data.